, ;:: \ 1 .: ;:, ',,' - ,.,",:' f.,..,..,......, { \':;B, m J\RSj' 4" c ' ;/r':WE Bur 1J5EÐ CJlRS ,; L ç .....' "'" 'A.. Þ \ A 1 . :,L (\ <'-{ _:c : /:...-::. . . '_ ,'" .',;.:: I . /' \f I i."i " -. '::..rf: Y . - .,:.,'.,=, ' V; WAN ;f;t;: " + h 11 ' - H ' <.' q, -:- , . . tA> . ,...... · . --, WA rtf fl , , ,.!? -{', '( ., ), ""- ',..... ,," . "", , ' ". 'fItI ,__ ,:::::::r:;;:),{ ,, , son's confidence. He got him a letter of intro- duction to Frank N. Doubleday, head of Doubleday, Page, who gave Knopf a job in the accounting department at eight dollars a week. Knopf, who was just twenty, stayed at Dou- bleday for eighteen m 0 nth s. ' , I wen t through the place like a shot," he recalls. "}""rom accounting to manufacturing, then to advertising, and then to sales, where I was al- lowed to tangle a little with the editorial de- " H o 1 partmen t. IS tang e mainly involved Con- rad, who had had six American publishers be- fore switching to Dou- bleday. In 1913, this firm contracted to pub- lish "Chance" and be- gan to negotiate for the American rights to all Conrad's works, with the idea of bringing out a complete set. Knopf, at his own suggestion, was assigned the task of helping to publicize Conrad. Thanks to Galsworthy, he had become something of an authority on the Polish novelist. He became even more of one after per- suading the late John Quinn, a lawyer famous for his collection of first editions, manuscripts, and modern paintings, to let him read a lot of correspondence Quinn had had with Conrad. This was full of complaints about money and fame -or, rather, the lack thereof. Knopf, who had already begun to form his own collection of grievances, was dehgh ted to discover in Conrad a fellow-connois- seur of in justice. He set about his pro- motional chore with zeal. Word of his activity reached Conrad through Ga1s- worthy, to whom Knopf had written about it. "If you know the young partner in D's [Doubleday's] firm (of whom Ada [Mrs. Galsworthy] and you spoke) well enough to write to him," Conrad said in a letter to Ga1sworthy, "you would perhaps jog his memory about [me]. It seems that this plan of 'taking me up' is his own suggestion because he likes my work." Knopf was still getting eight dollars a week at the tIme It Soon occurred to Knopf that he ........ 39 ,ì ' tf""::* 1. iij,:,:, . ., I' ;\1:' 'f. ":01'0 :.;.;. ìLk ( . ....- ............. "." .". ';:'. ; :& /. ,!"":.: '4.> . . ) 1 :'.:::....:::y' :::: .,.:,:'.} .:.:,..... ....:. ;: *. "':;;':::::.':':::::... ....1'0.". . .:.:::i i;ij 1 rnlr;:.:. .:::... : ..-:;.::: . '..'. .J' . " . :: /f' .. :-::.:,:,.,:,:,:,,':::... ... , . '.:.: ......::.::::.::.........;. .:.:.:-:.:.:-:/.: :?ß :-::;.:::: : .. . :. :,,: "'.<.f:;,; , "...:':..,, . · . -:.: '.'; ,: t ::,: :,:}:}l'.,. ... '::" ' ' : ' ,< ', .::<::;;::::;:::: LÚ%p .' ' .:...;.:h. .': ::,. ::.;i. ;t: "'1 !d:^'" ; ; ; . ......:- :R-. '::.h,:':;:,'".:< :,::wtI!Æi t ,J j > J '::""":::::::::);:i;;;y#' .;.' . ((I)m afraid I can't vouch for its condition. I haven't been getting very many miles to the gallon, and it seems to eat up a lot of oil. There's a disturbing whine in the transmission that might mean the bearings are worn out, and. . ." . might operate lTIOre effectively as a pub- licity man for Conrad if, in soliciting the encomiums he deemed necessary, he made no mention of any professional in- terest in the author. He was living in his father's house in Lawrence, so, present- ing himself, on engraved stationery bearing the legend "Mon Terrace," as a Conrad disciple with an uncontrollable urge to get out a booklet on the Master, he invited tributes from the American Winston Churchill, Louis Joseph Vance, Rex Beach, Robert W. Service, Theodore Dreiser, Stewart Edward White, Harold BelJ Wright, Gouver- neur Morris, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Ellen Glasgow, Irvin S. Cobb, H. L. Mencken, and David Belasco, among others'. Dreiser turned him down, per- spicaciously inquiring, "Are you by any chance connected with that monster in human form, Frank Doubleday?" ("Sister Carrie" had been withdrawn from circulation by Doubleday thirteen years' before, under legal pressure.) Most of the others came through handsomely. Knopf assembled, and Doubleday pub- lished, a booklet about Conrad contain- ing a bibliography, quotations from re- view" of his books, and twenty-two Mon . r errace-inspired tributes, including one from Belasco that read: May I be allowed to tell you hO"",T deep is my appreciation of Mr. Conrad's "",Tork; much of it sits in a very "",Tarm corner of my heart, not only for the splendid virility of its style... By the SUmlTIer of 1 913, when Knopf's booklet appeared, the pamphlet- eer of Mon Terrace was sitting in a very warm corner of Conrad's heart. "1 assure you," Conrad wrote him, "that 1 am very sensible of the good opinion you have of my work (which dear Hudson also likes) and I congratulate myself on it-since if you had not 'happened along,' all these books would have re- mained on the hack shelves. . . where they have been reposing for the last ten years. . . . I find it quite exciting to be rediscovered . . . after such a long time." The Doubleday edition of "Chance, " which appeared in 1 914, went through numerous printings and sold fifty thousand copies. The complete set came out later the same year. "The astute Alfred A. Knopf," George H. Doran, one of the publishers who had sold rights in this author to Doubleday, wrote in a book of reminiscences, "had